Guest Column: Stop the kangaroo slaughter

Published 12:30 am Thursday, August 20, 2020

Some older runners may recall a time when kangaroo skins were used in some running shoes, but are surprised to learn that while diminished, the use of these wildlife skins is still a big part of the athletic shoe industry supply chain.

Adidas, New Balance, Puma and even Oregon’s own Nike, the iconic brand founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, are end users of these skins for about 70 models of soccer cleats.

Most of us find kangaroos charming. They’re sociable boxers. The females carry their babies around in a pouch. They pose no threat to humans. The recent catastrophic fires in Australia called attention to these remarkable creatures, alerting the world to the effects of climate change and their fragile existence when their habitats are aflame.

Even before the fires raged, these iconic symbols of Australia were the victims of human callousness and cruelty.

The government blesses an annual massacre, conducted by commercial hunters, of upwards of 2 million kangaroos per year. The hunting practices are ruthless, often occurring at night, with the hunters shining a light on the marsupials and trying to shoot them in the head. If the victim is female, and lactating, there’s an additional casualty: a “joey” yanked from the pouch and decapitated or swung by the legs onto a rock to bash in its head.

Just as America protects the bald eagle, Australia must do better when it comes to kangaroos. The recent fires are a reminder of what’s at stake.

California has banned the sale of shoes containing kangaroo leather, but buyers can still find them. But most consumers remain largely unaware of their role in wildlife exploitation, since the athletic shoe industry doesn’t often explicitly label its fabrics.

China has finally acknowledged that the rest of the world is repulsed by the dog-meat industry there, and we should expect companies like Nike, which highlight their social consciousness in advertising and as part of their corporate culture, to adapt and end their role in driving the slaughter of kangaroos. Nike and other companies already offer soccer cleats made from synthetic or plant-based fibers.

There was a time when we slaughtered bison by the billions and hunted other species into extinction. That is an ugly era in our treatment of wildlife, and the kangaroo slaughter seems more than a little bit misplaced in the 21st century.

Corporate talk of sustainability and social consciousness must have practical features. Those representations fall flat when you consider the company is behind the largest mammalian slaughter of wildlife in their native habitats in the world.

The slaughter of kangaroos plays no legitimate role in Nike’s corporate culture. It is instead something that any sane person or company would conceal and minimize. But in our era of global communications, there’s no way to hide a body count of this scale.

It’s time for Nike to blaze a humane path and help push the entire industry out of the business of mass wildlife killing.

Just do it.